The U.S. Foreign Policy

Q1. Why did President Trump meet with Kim Jung Un?
or
Q2. Why did the Trump administration follow a “two-track strategy” towards North Korea?

All students will research and write a paper that adjudicates, based on evidence, between two or three competing explanations for an outcome or trend in U.S. foreign policy. Students will decide which particular outcome or trend they wish to examine. You should choose an outcome or trend that is significant and for which there are likely to be competing explanations, while also limiting the scope of your enquiry so that it can be addressed in a paper of 10-15 double-spaced pages.

In seeking to answer the question, students should elaborate two or three competing explanations for the outcome/trend. To allow you to adjudicate between the explanations, you should describe some major implications that follow from each of the explanations, i.e. what evidence (or types of evidence) would you expect to find if a particular explanation is correct?

What evidence (or types of evidence) would be inconsistent with a particular explanation? With those implications in mind, you should draw conclusions based on your research (research conducted using books, articles, datasets, archival records etc.) about the plausibility of the competing explanations.

Many outcomes and trends in foreign policy have multiple causes. If this seems to be the case for the outcome or trend you are explaining, you should say so, and explain how the causes compare to each other in terms of their importance.

The paper should include five sections:

Section 1: Introduction

• States the question, briefly reviews the competing explanations, summarizes the key findings, and provides a road map for the rest of the paper.

Section 2: Background and Overview of the Outcome/Trend

• Provide a concise summary of the background to an outcome and an overview of how the outcome played out. For example, if you are trying to explain why the United States intervened militarily in a particular country, this section should provide a concise summary of U.S. interactions with the country prior to the intervention and the form that the intervention took, as well as its key events.
• If you are explaining a trend in U.S. foreign policy, you should use this section to persuade the reader that the purported trend is a real one. E.g. you should describe key events and indicators that are evidence of the trend. For example, if you are explaining why U.S. relations with a particular country deteriorated (or improved) over a period of time, you should describe key events and/or provide other indicators that reflect the deterioration/improvement.

Section 3: Competing Explanations

• Describe 2 or 3 competing explanations for the outcome/trend in question.
• There may already be clear and competing explanations in the existing academic literature and you might want to adjudicate between those. For some outcomes/trends, there may not exist clearly-articulated explanations already, but you might consider how different theories/analytical lenses we cover in the course would explain the outcome/trend in question.
• Avoid including “straw man” arguments, i.e. explanations that you already know are unlikely to be supported by evidence.
• For the 2 or 3 competing explanations you put forward, elaborate the empirical implications you would expect to see if they were correct. I.e. what evidence or types of evidence would you expect to uncover if a particular explanation is correct and what evidence or types of evidence would reduce our confidence that a particular explanation is correct?

Section 4: Evidence and Adjudicating Between the Explanations

• Describe the key pieces of evidence you found during your research.
• This section should not be a detailed narrative report that recounts every single detail of how an outcome/trend unfolded. Instead, this section should present major pieces of evidence that are either consistent or inconsistent with each of the competing explanations.
• Based on the evidence you uncover, adjudicate between the competing explanations. Which explanation or explanations seem most plausible given the evidence you have uncovered? Are there significant pieces of evidence that are inconsistent with any or all of the competing explanations?

Section 5: Conclusion

• Summarize the major findings, discuss any implications for our theoretical understanding of U.S. foreign policy and/or for policy itself, and describe possible ideas for future research.

Research Paper Grading Rubric

1. Fulfilling the Assignment (5 Points):

• Does the paper do all of the following?
• Attempts to explain an outcome or trend in U.S. foreign policy.
• Provides clear background/overview information about the outcome/trend.
• Describes 2-3 competing explanations for the outcome/trend.
• For each of the possible explanations, elaborates the empirical evidence (or types of evidence) you would expect to see if the explanation was correct.
• Provides empirical evidence that allows the writer to adjudicate between the competing explanations and undertakes such an adjudication.

2. Overall Substance (30 Points):

• Accuracy and Evidence (15 Points)
• Is the evidence provided relevant to the specific question addressed by the paper and is it relevant to the competing explanations analyzed?
• Are there crucial omissions in evidence?
• Are there any major inaccuracies in the evidence presented?
• Logic and Organization (15 Points)
• Does the paper propose a logical way to adjudicate between the explanations?
• Is it clear how the writer uses evidence to adjudicate between the explanations?
• Do the conclusions reached logically follow from the main parts of the argument and evidence?
• Is the paper organized in a clear way that allows the reader to follow the argument in its entirety?

3. Writing and Presentation (5 Points Total):

• Sentence and Paragraph Structure: Are sentences complete and an appropriate length? Do paragraphs address clear topics and entail the logic development of points?
• Grammar: is grammar generally correct with relatively few errors?
• Spelling and punctuation: are they generally correct?
• Does the paper use a recognized citation format, with a bibliography/references/works cited section included?
• Is the paper written concisely without excess verbiage?